[jac241]

This is literal survivorship bias. I'm sure there are many people who are no longer alive because people did not take their texts seriously. I can easily imagine someone posting something just like this from the other side of the coin.

[rosywoozlechan]

> I'm sure there are many people who are no longer alive because people did not take their texts seriously.

So? If they wanted to die, that's what they wanted. Do we have to forcibly be required to live in a mental institution, pumped with drugs, for the benefit of others if we don't want to be here anymore?

[silexia]

Suicide should be an accepted life choice. No one should be forced to live just because others want them to. "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness".

[jac241]

No one is being forced to live in a mental institution because they sent someone texts one time that expressed suicidal ideation... There aren't enough psych beds to take care of the patients with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and suicidal intent with a plan to spare any to suicidal ideation patients. The OP spent one night in a psych emergency room, was not forced to take any medication, and was released.

People who are suicidal with a plan are not generally thinking clearly and are happy that they received care once they've been treated. We take people who are acutely intoxicated or unconscious to the hospital all the time and have no qualms about that.

Regarding being "pumped with drugs", I can only speak from experience rotating for 6 weeks at two different psych hospitals, but the only people who I saw forced to take medication were acutely psychotic, manic, or incredibly agitated. The schizophrenics that are picked up and brought to psychiatric hospitals generally are so psychotic that they would not be able to care for themselves - risk of harm to themselves. Same thing with acutely manic bipolar patients.

[rosywoozlechan]

> People who are suicidal with a plan are not generally thinking clearly and are happy that they received care once they've been treated.

As if preference on this is always treatable. For example, what kind of treatment do you give a person who wants to die because they have no support network and had a stroke which rendered them disabled and homeless? What realistic treatment is going to give them hope? A bed in a state funded nursing home surrounded for the rest of their days by untrained, uncaring people who are just there for the low wage paycheck?

[phreack]

I can't possibly imagine how trauma, torture and debt can at all help with suicidal ideation. It sounds barbaric.

[jac241]

I don't think torture is a remotely accurate description of psychiatric care. How do you think they treat people with suicidal ideation? Tie them down with chains, stuff a sock in their mouth, beat them with whips, and inject them with deliriants? Seriously dude... You get a room that looks like a normal hospital room. You have the choice to take antidepressants or not. You do group and individual therapy for a couple days. If you're actually being held on a 72 hour hold, your time will be up and you will be free to go. Otherwise you may realize that being in the hospital is beneficial and you choose to stay.

I respond to these comments because I don't want people to hesitate to call for help if someone they know reaches out in need because of what a bunch of software engineers on HN who've never seen the inside of a hospital have to say about psychiatric care.

[phreack]

I'm mostly referring to what comments like this[1] one sound like. They may be lies or they may be isolated cases in specific states or counties, but it's not at all the first time I've read such accounts. Grain of salt since it's the internet of course.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28497547

[guerrilla]

That doesn't justify violating somone and stripping them of their rights. There are plnety of possible nterventions short of that